Pope Francis tightens Vatican bank controls

The Pope has stepped up the fight against corruption at the Vatican by strengthening supervision of financial transactions at its internal bank.

Pope Francis issued a decree designed to combat money-laundering and prevent any financing of terrorism.

It is the latest move to stamp out abuses at the Vatican bank, which handles funds for the Catholic Church.

The Pope recently set up a commission to investigate the bank and report back to him personally.

Last month the Vatican froze the account of a senior cleric, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, suspected of involvement in money-laundering.

He and two others were arrested by Italian police in June on suspicion of trying to move 20m euros ($26m; £17m) illegally.

Pope Francis’s number one priority this summer is to sort out the financial mess at the Vatican bank and a parent body which looks after the financial assets of the Holy See, the BBC’s David Willey reports from Rome.

Bank review

The new decree is intended to tackle “money-laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”, the Vatican said.

It sets up a financial security committee to coordinate the anti-corruption effort.

Church spokesman Federico Lombardi said the decree would help the Vatican resist “increasingly insidious” forms of international financial crime.

A French-based financial watchdog, Moneyval, has been carrying out a review of the Vatican bank’s operations.

It found that the bank had not always exercised due diligence.

The Vatican bank, which is known officially as the Institute for Religious Works, handles the payroll for some 5,000 Vatican employees.

It also handles the funds for the central administration of the Catholic Church and holds the accounts of cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns and religious orders around the world.

It does not lend money and has assets worth $8.3bn (£5.4bn; 6.2bn euros).

WILL The Hierarchy of Archdiocese of Bombay take cue from Pope Francis and bring in transparency in Financial and Property affairs at the Parishes?

SILENT VOICE has been pursuing it with Archbishop Cardinal Oswald Gracias for quite some time, without much success….It seems the Hierarchy is not interested in involving Laity in management of Property and Financial Matters, for the reason best known to them.

Hope the wiser counsel prevails and Cardinal Oswald Gracias, in the process of Advising the Pope, will take some Advice in return…

GREG

“Not to share one’s goods with the poor is to rob them”.

Vatican City:

Pope Francis has called on world leaders to put an end to the “cult of money” and to do more to help the poor, warning that insecurity was rising in many regions of the world and the “joy of life” was diminishing in developed countries.

“The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal,” Francis said in an address to ambassadors to the Vatican on Thursday.

Francis said that radical free-market ideologies had created “a new, invisible, and at times virtual, tyranny” and human beings “considered as consumer goods” and called for global financial reform that would benefit everyone.

“Solidarity, which is the treasure of the poor, is often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance and the economy. While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling,” he said.

“I encourage the financial exports and the political leaders of your countries to consider the words of St John Chrysostom “Not to share one’s goods with the poor is to rob them”, he said.

The Argentine pope, formerly the archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio, became a powerful voice on the side of the poor during his homeland’s devastating economic crisis.

Increasing transparency

The Vatican Bank, a centre of scandals for decades, is to launch its own website and publish its annual report in an effort to increase transparency, its new president said.

Ernst von Freyberg told the bank’s employees of the changes, which should be in place by the end of the year, this week, according to Vatican Radio.

He also said the bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) and dubbed the world’s most secretive bank by Forbes magazine, had also hired an auditing firm to make sure it meets international standards against money laundering.

Freyberg was appointed in February to take the place of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi who was fired last May.

Gotti Tedeschi said he was dismissed because he wanted more transparency but the board, made up of international financial experts, said he had neglected basic management responsibilities and alienated staff.

His abrupt departure, along with the arrest of Pope Benedict’s butler for stealing confidential papal documents, came during a leaks scandal that shook the Vatican last year and contributed to Benedict’s decision to resign.

The Vatican has been trying to shed its image as a murky financial centre since 1982, when Roberto Calvi, known as “God’s Banker” because of his links to the Vatican, was found hanging from London’s Blackfriars Bridge.

Calvi was head of the Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy’s largest private bank, which collapsed in a fraudulent bankruptcy.

The Vatican bank owned part of the Ambrosiano.

In July, a European anti-money laundering committee said the Vatican Bank failed to meet all its standards on fighting money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes.

The report by Moneyval, a monitoring group of the 47-nation Council of Europe, found the Vatican had passed only nine of 16 “key and core” aspects of its financial dealings.